Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), is Brooklyn's first and only contemporary art museum dedicated to the art and culture of Africa and its diaspora. Since 2023, the museum has operated within an expanded campus which includes three venues: - Culture Lab II, the flagship gallery, performance space, giftshop, and cafe, located at 10 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217 - Ubuntu Garden, a community garden + public art space, which is located at 48 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217 - Abolition House, a seasonal art residency on Governors Island, located at House 7A Nolan Park, Governors Island, NY 10004

History

MoCADA was founded in 1999 by Laurie Cumbo in a building owned by the historical Bridge Street AWME Church in the heart of

Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Bedford–Stuyvesant ( ), colloquially known as Bed–Stuy, is a neighborhood in the northern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Bedford–Stuyvesant is bordered by Flushing Avenue to the north (bordering Williamsburg), Classon ...

. In 2006, MoCADA moved to its current home, an expanded space at 80 Hanson Place, at South Portland Avenue, in

Fort Greene Fort Greene is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Flushing Avenue and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north, Flatbush Avenue Extension and Downtown Brooklyn to the w ...

, a historically black middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn which is home to the

Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a multi-arts center in Brooklyn, New York City. It hosts progressive and avant-garde performances, with theater, dance, music, opera, film programming across multiple nearby venues. BAM was chartered in 18 ...

(BAM) arts district. MoCADA has grown to accommodating many exhibitions throughout the year that highlight various identities of the African Diaspora.

Exhibitions

''Saying No: Reconciling Spirituality and Resistance in Indigenous Australian Art'' is an exhibition curated by Australian artist Bindi Cole. Based on Cole's previous exhibition in Australia, Saying No combines the religious ceremonial practices highlighted by Indigenous artist with the protest for Indigenous rights and visibility in the public imagaination. The curatorial statement is as follows: "The word 'no' does not exist in the Australian Aboriginal languages. Where it does exist, this powerful word is reserved for the elders and is used with great care and ceremony. As these languages reach the brink of extinction, indigenous Australian artists are using contemporary art to assert their identity and culture and say no to racism, land theft and colonialism in an urban world. Saying No features sculpture, installation, painting, photography, video, audio and mixed media works." Some of the exhibiting artists include

Tony Albert Tony Albert (born 1981) is a contemporary Australian artist working in a wide range of mediums including painting, photography and mixed media. His work engages with political, historical and cultural Aboriginal and Australian history, and his ...

, Vicki Couzens, Fiona Foley, Daniel Boyd and Maree Clarke.

Community outreach

In 2012, the museum landed a $100,000 grant from the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

to pay for a two-year program that brought monthly concerts to public spaces in

NYCHA The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is a public development corporation which provides public housing in New York City, and is the largest public housing authority in North America. Created in 1934 as the first agency of its kind in th ...

Houses like Walt Whitman, Ingersoll, and Farragut in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. The concert series, titled "Public Exchange," attracted talented musicians and drew crowds up to 500 or 600. The following year in 2013, MoCADA launched another art performance series, Soul of Brooklyn, which is "a series of block-party style arts events meant to bring the community together and promote local businesses." From 2001 to 2011, Cumbo served as a graduate professor in the Arts and Cultural Management program at

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...

's School of Art & Design.

Controversy

In 2014, now-city councilmember Laurie Cumbo designated $1.4 million, her largest capital budget allocation, to MoCADA, which she founded and directed before winning a position on city council. This was matched by the same amount of money in the city's executive budget for the 2015 fiscal year. While technically not illegal,

Capital New York ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American political digital newspaper company founded by American banker and media executive Robert Allbritton in 2007. It covers politics and policy in the Unit ...

noted, her support for the museum is "notable chiefly for the sizable, seven-figure contribution, and for her personal closeness to the recipient organization." The blog reported that for most city council members, "the allocations reported on their conflict-of-interest forms were a fraction of the one to MoCADA." The executive director of

Citizens Union Citizens Union is a New York City-based good government group founded in 1897 to combat the influences of the Tammany Hall political machine. J. Pierpont Morgan, Benjamin Altman, Elihu Root, and Carl Schurz numbered among its 165 founders. In 1 ...

, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, said the action “raises questions about why she alone would fund an organization that she founded....It smacks of showing favoritism, in a way that almost crosses the line."

References

External links